Notes from April 2017 group

 The Glass Kitchen by Linda Francis Lee - Discussed on Wed April 5, 2017 at Geneseo Public Library


Portia Cuthcart never intended to leave Texas. Her dream was to run the Glass Kitchen restaurant her grandmother built decades ago. But after a string of betrayals and the loss of her legacy, Portia is determined to start a new life with her sisters in Manhattan . . .

When she moves into a dilapidated brownstone on the Upper West Side, she meets twelve-year-old Ariel and her widowed father, Gabriel, a man with his hands full trying to raise two daughters on his own. Soon, a promise made to her sisters forces Portia back into a world of magical food and swirling emotions, where she must confront everything she has been running from. What seems so simple on the surface is anything but when long-held secrets are revealed, rivalries exposed, and the promise of new love stirs to life like chocolate mixing with cream.

"The Glass Kitchen" is a delicious novel, a tempestuous story of a woman washed up on the shores of Manhattan who discovers that a kitchen--like an island--can be a refuge, if only she has the courage to give in to the pull of love, the power of forgiveness, and accept the complications of what it means to be family.

This was an interesting, easy to read book.  We enjoyed the characters and especially the cooking and recipes given. There were good topics for discussion in this story including city vs country life, family relationships, poor vs rich lifestyles.  There was a lot of family drama.  Most of our group enjoyed this novel.